Page 45 of Minor Trouble
Nothing.
I didn’t move. We needed to talk.
“Noah, please.” Determined not to resort to pulling his headphones off or shutting down the Wi-Fi—although that would be a great idea—I tried again.
When he blanked me, I tackled him for a third time, raising my voice but keeping it even. “I’m not going to ask again.”
Finally, he took off his headphones and stared at me with an expression that couldn’t have been less interested. “What do you want?”
His question gave me implied permission to perch on the edge of his bed, so I did. “To talk about how you’re feeling about everything.”
He gave a noncommittal shrug. “Fine.”
Even I knew when someone said they were fine, they weren’t.
“Noah, you’ve attempted to take off twice in the past couple of weeks. I know this move can’t have been easy for you.” Nor me, I added silently. “But if we’re going to make it work, we have to be more honest with each other.”
“Like you’ve been about Ms. Coren? How long have you two been doing it?” His directness came out of nowhere and blindsided me.
“I—what? How do you even know we’ve…”
Noah pulled at something on the covers, avoiding any eye contact. “I saw you.”
Shame and guilt rolled over me. Poor kid, no wonder he’d run. “When?”
“Last night. I woke up and didn’t know where I was, so I came to find you. When you weren’t in the living room, I guessed you must be in one of the other rooms, so I opened the door and…” Noah’s voice trailed off as he no doubt recalled the images he must have seen, which he would now never been able to unsee.
“Oh, God, Noah, I’m so sorry.” I clapped a hand over my face, partly to hide my own embarrassment. “It was a one-time thing, I swear.”
His face fell. “Really? I like her.”
“You do?” My hand dropped to my lap and I tilted my head to hear more.
Noah nodded. “Yeah. She sort of reminds me of Mom.”
The admission hit me in the chest harder than a punch from Maddox would. Physically, Hannah and Ainsley couldn’t have been further apart, except for their blonde hair. But in terms of character traits, caring, looking out for others before themselves, they couldn’t have been more similar. It hadn’t clicked for me until now. Perhaps that was what had drawn me to Ainsley in the first place.
“I miss her,” he said so quietly, I almost couldn’t hear him. “I miss everyone from back home, everything.” My son buried his face in his hands, shoulders heaving as he began to silently sob.
A lump sprang into my throat. This was the talk we should have had weeks ago. I should have known how he felt about Hannah’s death, the move, everything. He was thirteen years old for fuck’s sake, and I’d treated him like an adult who knew how to deal with it. Christ, I didn’t even know how I should deal with it myself. I shifted up the bed and encircled Noah in a bear hug, pulling him into my chest and comforting him while he cried, all the while fighting back my own emotions.
“Noah, I’m so sorry.” I was like a parrot repeating my apologies. I had no idea what else I should say.Ainsley would.The thought sprang into my head. I’d been horrible to her earlier, when I shouldn’t have been. Fuck, I was really getting this whole thing wrong. Watching him let out his grief made me wish I’d been there at Hannah’s funeral, to hold his hand and be there for him. I couldn’t turn back time, but I could certainly be there for him now. I didn’t know how long we’d been sitting there until his sobs finally subsided and he pulled away from me, swiping a hand across his swollen face.
“S’okay.” Noah screwed up his face. “I didn’t mean to be such a wuss.”
“What? For getting upset about losing your mom? About moving across the country to be with a dad you barely know? For having to make new friends in a new town?” I ruffled his hair. “Youhave nothing to be sorry about.”
He sniffed. “I’ve made new friends, well, one anyway. Pepper’s cool.”
“She is, isn’t she?”
“Although her mom doesn’t like you very much. After she found out who you were, she kept going on about how badly you treated Mom and how you let her down. She said you’d been in jail too.”
I sucked in my lips. I felt like I’d spent a lifetime letting people down.
Now was the time to change.
To step up.
